Review: “The Secret Language of Relationships”

Allie Glinski ’21

Astrology has fascinated me. While I have always questioned the validity of vague daily horoscopes, I’ve always been able to reach a certain understanding of myself through the reading of extensive online entries which detail and examine the typical behavior of individuals born on particular dates.

What I didn’t know until I picked up “The Secret Language of Relationships” by Gary Goldschneider and Joost Ellfers is that within basic astrology, there are subsets of each sign. Goldschneider, a marathon pianist and scientist of sorts, developed the astrological science of “Personology,” cited as the study of personality types based on the theory that people born on the same day or during the same week share unique characteristics. Within his studies exist 48 individual personality profiles; four profiles stemming from the typical 12 horoscope signs. For my sign of Virgo, there are Virgo I’s, Virgo II’s, Virgo III’s, and Virgo-Libra cusps. The book contains a description for each of the 48 signs, as well as relationship profiles detailing the nature of a relationship between any two signs. These profiles explain strengths, weaknesses, behavior, advice and more for the signs and their relationships. For me, this book is elusive and mysterious. Besides discovering it at the house of my friend who was oblivious to its origins, it came to me out of the abyss during a time when everyone’s behavior as well as my own felt puzzling.

I’m not trying to say that everything in the book is completely accurate, but for me and my three friends who also read the profiles of themselves and their relationships, everything in the book was completely accurate. From identifying my main modes of functioning as a Virgo III to be sensation and thought, to detailing the nature of both the successes and obstacles I most frequently encounter, this book read me up and down for treasure and filth. Not to be dramatic but this book gave me all the answers.

To be critical, I found the personality profiles to be more accurate than the relationship profiles, which constitute a good portion of the book. While the details of the relationship profiles were accurate, they tended to label the best potential for the relationships between respective signs; for example, they might label two signs as good for a work or family relationship, or another two as good for marriage or love. This sort of threw me off because I feel that relationships can work well together in complex ways that might defy the presence of certain characteristics between two individuals. Nevertheless, I now find more understanding of myself—not only through my Virgo identity, but also through my Virgo III identity.